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One of the cruellest chapters in the long and painful history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the My Lai massacre to this day causes emotional reactions in veterans and anti-war activists alike.
American troops, the Charlie Company, under the command of Lt. Calley, stormed My Lay on a search-and-destroy mission on March 16, 1968, killing hundreds of Vietnamese civilians, including women and children.
The villages' young men had left to work in the fields, leaving old men, women and children all unarmed.
Calley, the only American tried in connection with the massacre, was convicted and sentenced by a court-martial to life imprisonment. He was freed after three years under house arrest when then- U.S. President Richard Nixon intervened.
Calley, now a jeweller in Georgia, refuses to discuss the massacre.
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